HiLobrow is proud to present the second installment of Robert Waldron’s novel The School on the Fens. New installments will appear each Saturday for thirty-eight weeks. CLICK HERE to read all installments published thus far.

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2

The following day over the PA system, Farrell curtly ordered all seventh-grade teachers again to report with their classes to the auditorium at the beginning of the fourth period. Students were instructed to sit in the same seats that they had occupied the day before. “Mr. Duncan, why’s the headmaster so mad?” asked Nancy Egan, a bright, blue-eyed girl from East Boston.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Along the way to the auditorium, I ran into Ed Horgan with his class.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“Hope it’s not what I think it is,” he said.

Students nervously filed into the aisles to stand in front of their seats. There was some scrambling, some students forgetting their row and seat, but in less than ten minutes four hundred sixies had assembled.

Today Farrell stood not in the middle aisle but on the stage behind the lectern with its carved panel depicting the school’s symbol of Romulus and Remus suckling a she-wolf.

He placed his hand over his heart and led the students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Afterwards, students silently stood, their attention fixed on Farrell. Looking around and satisfied by the atmosphere of anxiety he had created, he said, “You may be seated.” He waited until the hall was so quiet I could hear my students breathing.

“Yesterday, I expressed my hope that each of you would succeed at Classical and become torchbearers of our high ideals of excellence.”

He stopped to sip water from a glass — a dramatic gesture, prolonging the suspense.

“Take a good look at this assembly hall. The windows are new, the drapes are new, the carpeting is new, and the ceiling is newly painted. The chairs you’re sitting in have just been restored. They don’t make mahogany chairs like that any more. The renovation of this hall cost over a million dollars.”

Some students gasped.

“It’s come to my attention that one of you has vandalized a restored chair by scratching his initials into it. I know the aisle and the chair, and now I want the culprit to stand.”

There was much rustling and turning of heads, but no one stood up.

“You know who you are. Stand up.”

At the back of the hall, a blond boy stood. It was a member of Ed’s class.

“Your name?” Farrell barked.

“Scott Feeny, sir,” he said, his face drained of color.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Scott Feeny, sir.”

“You vandalized the chair in front of you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have anything to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry.” He broke down weeping.

Farrell allowed a brief coda of silence, ample time for everyone to stare at Scott who suddenly collapsed into his chair. Ed rushed to him, tossing Farrell an angry glance.

Having accomplished his goal, the humiliation of a student along with terrorizing the others, Farrell dismissed the assembly. They now understood, not in an abstract way but in a very real sense, that he possessed absolute power at Classical High. His performance also served as a warning to the new teachers: “If I can be this cruel to a kid, imagine what I’d do to an adult who crosses me.”

To Farrell there were only two kinds of teachers at Classical: those loyal or disloyal to him. Whether or not you were a bad or a great teacher was unimportant. In fact, most of those he promoted to administrative positions were lazy, ineffective classroom teachers — as he had been — but they had proven their loyalty to him.

About the Author

Robert Waldron taught English Literature at a prestigious Boston public high school for over three decades. He is the author of seventeen books, six of them devoted to the life and work of Thomas Merton. He created a "walking with" series of books that addressed such writers as Kathleen Norris, Henri Nouwen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and James Martin. He has also written three novels, including the critically acclaimed The Secret Dublin Diary of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is an award-winning writer on modern spirituality and the recipient of four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.